After a while I got hungry and went to the kitchen. There was nothing to eat. I drank another beer and looked again, and found half a loaf of whole wheat bread behind the beer in the back of the refrigerator...

— Robert B. Parker

I needed to find my way to write. I need about six hours of uninterrupted time in order to produce about two hours of writing and when I accepted that and found the way to do it then I was able to write.

— Robert B. Parker

I think at this stage in my life I have learned that there are any number of things that men will never know, and can never hope to know, about women.

— Robert B. Parker

I took my .38 out and looked to see that there were bullets in all the proper places. I knew there would be, but it did no harm to be careful. And I'd seen Clint Eastwood do it once in the movies.

— Robert B. Parker

It’s like I need to love you to come back whole from where I sometimes go.

— Robert B. Parker

Pearl was hurling around my apartment, sniffing everything, including Rich Beaumont and Patty Giacomo, which neither of them like much." Can you get Pearl to settle down?" Paul asked." I could speak to her, but she'd continue to do what she wants, and I'd look ineffectual. My approach is to endorse everything she does." Susan said, "Come here, Pearl." And Pearl went over to her, and Susan gave her a kiss on the mouth, and Pearl wagged her tail; and lapped Susan's face, and turned and went back and sniffed at Patty.

— Robert B. Parker

Rachel drank some more bourbon. “What I am trying to do,” she said, “is to thank you. And to say it as genuinely as I can. I do thank you. I will remember along as I live when you came into the room and got me, and I will always remember when you killed them, and I was glad, and you came, and we put our arms around each other. And I will always remember that you cried.

— Robert B. Parker

See, being a person is kind of random and arbitrary business. You may have noticed that. And you need to believe in something to keep it from being too random and arbitrary to handle. Some people take religion, or success, or patriotism, or family, but for a lot of guys those things don't work. A guy like me. I don't have religion or family that sort of thing. So you accept some system of order, and you stick to it.

— Robert B. Parker

The thing I like about Irish whiskey is that the more you drink, the smoother it goes down. Of course that's probably true of antifreeze as well, but illusion is nearly all we have.

— Robert B. Parker

Writer's block? I've never heard of a plumber complain about plumber's block.

— Robert B. Parker